


3 Days

by RedBubbles



Category: Gorillaz
Genre: Alcohol, Banter, British Politics, Drinking, F/M, Heavy Petting, School boy 2D, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-30 08:16:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11459640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedBubbles/pseuds/RedBubbles
Summary: You’re leaving for university in just 6 weeks, and Stuart has accepted that. He knows you won’t fall apart, he knows you won’t drift away, but he still wants you. He knows that this summer holiday will be his last time with you, but it’s brutally cut away by a fight that has the two of you ignoring each other.His tune changes when you turn up on his doorstep begging for forgiveness, however.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> [Check out my imagines blog on Tumblr (2d-imagines)](https://2d-imagines.tumblr.com)

You and Stuart walk through the gate, arm in arm, in possibly the worst state of uniform yet. Ever since you had been Second years, there had been an almost ongoing battle between every teacher and every student about uniform. If there was ever a day to completely throw caution to the wind, it was today; the last day ever. 

Your usually short skirt is rolled up almost to your arse, and your tights are laddered and filled with holes. Your shirt is untucked and the first two buttons undone, your tie tied in a loose bow around your neck. You’ve pinned every single badge you could find to the lapels and collar of your blazer. Having forgone your usually neat black lace up shoes, you’ve opted for something a little more daring; killer black wedges, with studs up the back and across the toes. You’ve got a spare pair of trainers in your bag, but you much prefer these ones. They bring you to almost the same height as Stuart. 

Stuart looks slightly more normal albeit still scruffy, his blazer trailing off one shoulder, similar badges lining the collar and lapels of his own blazer, his tie tied in a short fat knot, his shirt untucked and ripped on one elbow. The knees of his trousers are scuffed, and he’s wearing trainers instead of his normal black shoes. The two of you grin madly at each other as you walk in.

The groups of First and Second years that mill around outside stare at the two of you in horror as you strut in, laughing and singing loudly.

“One more day of school,” Stuart sings.  
“One more day of sorrow,” you sing back, grinning.  
“One more day of this old dump, and we’ll be home tomorrow!” you sing in unison, laughing as a group of passing Third Year girls give you odd looks.

Inside, it’s boiling hot with your blazer on, and you both shed them quickly, falling into step with the group of moody looking Seventh Years. Yours seem to be the only smiling faces. 

“Hey, (Y/n), the party’s still going ahead, right?” calls a voice from somewhere behind you. You twist in the general direction of it.  
“Yeah, be at mine at 7!”  
“Want us to bring booze?” yells a different voice. You look at Stuart and raise your eyebrows. He nods solemnly, and then grins.  
“As much as you want!” he yells back to the voice. You nudge him in the side hard, making him yelp.  
“Idiot, now we’ll be flooded with alcohol!” you hiss. He just gives you a lazy grin.  
“Is that a problem?”  
You roll your eyes as the group scatters into the main hall to snatch up the good seats at the back near the fans before they get taken.  
“With your alcohol tolerance? Yes,”

You manage to bag decent seats at the back. Stuart runs his hands through his hair.

“What’d’you mean my alcohol tolerance?” he asks after a few minutes, the words having finally sunk in, “I can drink fine!”  
You smirk and little, brushing an imaginary speck of dirt off your incredibly short skirt.   
“I seem to remember a certain blue haired somebody getting wasted behind the science blocks and fooling around with a certain biology te-“  
He clamps his hand over your mouth, and you lick his palm, sniggering. He glares at you, and wipes it down the sleeve of your shirt. You snort and shrug.  
“I don’t care what you do to this shirt, it’s getting burnt tomorrow,”  
“For real?”  
“For real you can do what you want, or for real it’s getting burnt?”  
“Burnt,”  
“Mhmm. I’m burning everything I won’t need for uni,”

Stuart pauses, nibbling his lip.  
“Are you gonna burn me?”

The look you give him isn’t what he had expected. He’d thought you’d just brush it off and laugh, but instead you look up at him a little sadly, and then clasp his hand in yours.  
“I’m not done with you yet,” you say, and then perk up a little, “I still need you to buy alcohol for tonight if my ID doesn’t check out,”

Stuart rolls his eyes as the rabble that had filled the hall quiets down, the headmaster climbing onto the stage, which is decked with trays containing badges, trophies, boxes and shields. 

“Good to know I’m still useful,” he says, and you smile at him, squeezing his hand. 

“For now,” you joke.

He squeezes back, grinning both inside and out.


	2. Chapter 2

You slump a little lower in your seat, wiping your sleeve across your brow.  
“Crikey, if it gets any hotter in here, I’m gonna die,” you whisper to Stuart, who looks equally bothered. Everyone around you does, as the headmaster drones on, plodding through endless awards that mean nothing to you. 

“I’m gonna melt,” Stuart whispers back. He’s almost lying flat in his chair, his knees bumping against the one in front. You stretch your legs out, grateful for the room to do it.

“All these awards are bullsh-"

“The nominees for the Sixth Form Music award,” the headmasters announces from the stage, making you sit bolt up right and grin at Stuart, “are as follows; Neil Adams, Brooke Härle, Guinevere Boréal, Stuart Pot, and Katie Lyon,” 

“You’ll win it for sure,” you whisper, all annoyance at the heat gone, “you killed it at the talent show,”  
Stuart grins and shrugs goodnaturedly. The headmaster shuffles through the papers, unfolding one and reading the contents. 

“And the winner is Stuart Pot!” 

You cheer and clap as the rest of the hall erupts into applause, nudging Stuart’s arm as he gets up, a somewhat bashful grin on his face, and walks up to the front of the hall with the other nominees. Loud cheers of “POT, POT, POT” fill the room, and the teachers work hard to try and quell it once he’s returned to his seat. A few boys in front twist in their seats to high five him or slap him on the back, and he grins and gives them a thumbs ups in return. 

He cradles a little card exclaiming his achievement, and a box of brand new guitar picks as a prize. As he sits down, you scoot over, looking at them with him. For the rest of the Sixth Form prizes, the two of you sort through the picks, classing them first in terms of prettiness, then ugliness, then usefulness, then how far they can be flicked, although Stuart only lets you flick the ones he doesn’t like.

When the last prize, for Photography, goes to Adam Cox, the entire hall begins to shift restlessly, ready to get up and get moving. 

“Being awarded a sporting colour is a sign of remarkable sporting achievement,” the headmaster says, holding a small platter of brightly coloured badges and causing a mass groan to go up around the hall, which he ignores, scowling a little before continuing, “to receive one is a great honour, and I have no doubt that many of you will continue to excel on the sporting grounds even after your academic life has ended,”

You nudge Stuart.  
“I wish my academic life would end already,” you whisper. He nods in agreement, but his stomach twists awkwardly. He hopes this goes on a little longer, and not just for the fantastic view he has of your legs.

"You’re gonna get a cricket one for sure,” you whisper, forcing him to move his gaze up to your face, “that hit you did on sports day was bloody brilliant,”  
“I bet you’ll get one for netball,” he whispers back, “and lacrosse,"

“The students receiving sporting colours for rounders are as follows…Laura Whistle, Dennis Anderson, (Y/n) (L/n), Levi Bronk, and Margot Bantik,”

Stuart cheers and shakes your shoulder as you stand up, and grins even wider as you return to your seat, fixing the little pink badge across the pink strip on your tie. 

You go up 4 more times, for netball, hockey, lacrosse and swimming, and Stuart goes up for cricket as predicted. By the end, you have a little row of coloured badges on your tie, corresponding to each colour strip; the rounders badge on the pink, the swimming badge on the pale blue, the hockey on the dark blue, the lacrosse on the green, and the netball on the red. You were just lucky you got those colours; anything different wouldn’t have matched.

Stuart wears his orange cricket badge on the lapel of his blazer; just underneath a small pin badge that reads “Bend down and suck it”. You and Stuart clink the sporting colour badges together, as though toasting, and then grin at each other like children. 

The prize giving wraps up relatively quickly, and the Seventh Years are (thankfully) allowed to leave first, lumbering past terrified First Years and jealous Second and Third Years. 

“So unfair,” you hear one mutter, “why do _they_ get to go ahead?”

You turn around and flip them off, and Stuart laughs, flipping them off too. 

As soon as you’re out of the hall you stretch and then turn to Stuart.

“Wanna get out of here?”

He grins and slings his bag over his shoulder.  
“I’ve been waiting 7 years to get out of here,” he says, swinging his bag and bumping it against your shoulder. You shove him, and join a group of Seventh years who are also headed towards the exit, chattering excitedly. A few turn and check times for the party, and a few say they can’t wait. One girl flashes you a picture of the dress she plans on wearing, and you give her a thumbs up.

Stuart feels a sharp nudge on his shoulder blade, and he slows a little to walk with the crowd of his mates just behind him. One leans their elbow on his shoulder.  
“You’ve gotta hook up with (Y/n) tonight,”  
Stuart shushes him.  
“I don’t wanna ruin her night,”

This makes them howl with laughter, and Stuart grins a little too, somewhat bashfully.

Once the laughter dies down, another boy to his left pipes up.  
“You’ve been waiting since you were what, 8? Come on, mate, she’s gonna be gone before you know it,”

A pang of sadness wells up in Stuart’s gut, and a lump appears in his throat.  
“Yeah, I know, I’m gonna,”

“You’re gonna hook up with her?” someone else asks, over his shoulder. Stuart grins a little more confidently.  
“Course I am,”  
“Oh _finally_ ,” the boy leaning on his shoulder says, “I would have asked her out _years_ ago if you hadn’t been so bloody hooked on her,”

Stuart shrugs, but a solid plan is forming in his mind to dance with you, to get you alone, and to kiss you in the most romantic way possible. 

The two crowds finally merge, and then split into smaller groups of three and four. You and Stuart are reunited. For a brief second, as a group of girls call to you wishing you a good summer, he thinks he sees tears in your eyes.

You swipe your hand across your face quickly, just tucking a lock of hair behind your ear, and they’re gone. 

“I think everyone who’s coming is bringing alcohol,” you tell him, “I’m gonna have a hard job explaining this to my mum,”  
“We can always stash it somewhere,” Stuart suggests, “drink it during the holidays,”  
You laugh, and immediately the sad, heavy feeling in his stomach vanishes. He has a whole summer to make you laugh and giggle and snort.

You unexpectedly stop a few steps from the gate, letting other people push past you. A few turn back to wish you and Stuart a good summer, and even a Fifth year girl turns around and says “have a good summer, _Stuart_ ” in a light, breathy voice. His eyes, however, are only on you.

“You alright?” 

You nod and swallow past the lump in your throat. 

“Yeah,” you say, smiling at him, “I just…I can’t believe it’s over,”  
“What is?”  
“School,” you say, and then point at the gate, “once we cross past that gate, we’re no longer school children. We’re…adults. It’s weird,”  
“You’re still going to uni though,” Stuart says, feeling that familiar pang of sadness in his stomach again, “you’ve got a lot of school to go,”  
“I know…it’s just…I dunno. No more secondary school,”

Stuart reaches out and takes your hand, squeezing tight.  
“We’ll leave the school the way we came in, yeah?”  
You smile at him gratefully, stepping up to the gate.  
“Together,”

You take a deep breath, shutting your eyes and looking so serious and grown up that for a moment Stuart thinks you’ve become and entirely different person. But then you open your eyes and give him a smile so wide and happy that he can still see that same 3 year old who marched up to him in nursery and upended a bucket of water over his head.

“Stuart Pot,” you say, squeezing his hand, “I officially declare our spree of secondary education to be…OVER!”

You both jump over the boundary of the gate, and high five each other wildly.

“No more school ever!” he yells, throwing an arm around your shoulder and almost pulling you off balance.  
“No more secondary school ever!” you yell back, slinging your arm around his waist, “no more school for 6 weeks!”

He looks down at you, smiling and laughing and waving to people passing you by, wishing them a happy summer and good luck. He looks at your your legs and your waist and your chest, the curve of your breast just visible through the unbuttoned portion of your shirt. He looks at your smile and your eyes and his arm slung loosely over your shoulder. 

He has all summer. And he has tonight.


	3. Chapter 3

You and Stuart clink your champagne glasses together, sat on the roof of your shed as you watch down on the party like a pair of mischievous angels. 

It’s only 9 o’clock, and the party is in full swing. Music is blasting out of the massive speakers your dad had hired, and the various lights and lanterns hung around the garden lend a warm golden glow across some parts of the garden, and leave other parts in soft shadow. 

Voices and laughter and singing drift up to you, as well as the occasional scream and yelp. A game of beer pong is being held on the patio table, and there also seems to be a game of Twister, even though you had no idea you even owned a Twister mat. And, to be expected, there are snogging couples hidden in the darker parts of the garden.

Stuart envies them. He also slightly envies the Twister people. But mostly the snogging couples.

You sigh and tilt your head back, and he looks over at you. The dress you’re wearing is downright _gorgeous_ , and shows off (almost) everything he wants to see. The last fading rays of sunlight play soft shadows across your skin, and he can’t help but let his eyes trail downwards to where your dress shows off the tiniest curve of your cleavage. 

You swing your legs leisurely, and then, without opening your eyes, lean over and rest your head on Stuart’s shoulder, knowing exactly where it is.  
“I’m gonna miss everyone so much,” you tell him, “I’m gonna miss parties like this,”  
“You won’t be saying that tomorrow morning when you’re on clean up duty,” he says, and you laugh, opening your eyes and raising your head, shoving him gently.  
“You’ll be helping me out! We need to start making arrangements for all our summer escapades,”  
“How about tomorrow we just clean up and then crash on the sofa?”  
You grin at him, and lean into him again.  
“You have the best ideas,”

Stuart takes another sip of his champagne, and puts his arm around you. From across the yard, he can see a few of his mates waving at him, whooping and giving him thumbs up. He flips them off, and shakes his head, trying to get them to cut it out. You, luckily, haven’t noticed, just continue sipping your champagne, head on Stuart’s shoulder. 

“This summer is gonna be so much fun,” you say after a while, “I won’t accept not seeing you for even one day for the next 6 weeks. I’m gonna stick to you like that gum stuck to your hair in First year,”

Stuart makes an agonised noise.  
“You promised you’d never bring that up again,”  
You snort with laughter, sitting up again, so his arm falls away from your shoulders.  
“You tried to spit it _into the air_. You consciously thought that that would be a good idea, and then you _tried to do it_. I’ll never stop bringing it up,”  
“Is that the story you’ll tell on my wedding day?” he asks, and receiving an evil grin in response. You take a sly sip of your champagne.  
“Oh no. I have some _much_ better stories lined up for your wedding,”

Stuart downs the rest of his champagne.  
“Maybe I just won’t get married,”  
You pout at him, bumping your shoulder against his.  
“Oh _Stu_ , you have to!” you whine, “I have so many great anecdotes and photos!”  
“Like that photo of you wearing my dungarees and a saucepan on your head and nothing else and looking like a weirdo while I laugh at you in the background?” he asks sweetly. You scowl at him playfully, and scoot to the edge of the roof.  
“Hush you. Come on, I wanna play beer pong,”


	4. Chapter 4

Stuart has lost you to a group of girls who had dragged you away to compare dresses or cars or bracelets or something. He picks up the last cup of beer from the beer pong table and downs it, tossing the ping pong ball at the head of someone on the opposite team. Someone on his team nudges him.  
“I heard Neil is giving something out round the side of the house,” the boy beside Stuart whispers. Stuart cocks his head to the side a little.  
“What, blowjobs?”  
The boy rolls his eyes and makes a face.  
“No, you bellend, like, _drugs_ ,”

Stuart pauses. Depending on what it is, he’s very much down for it. But does he want to get high tonight, of all nights? 

The boy seems to read his mind.  
“It might give you a bit more confidence with your bird,”  
Stuart glares at him and sets the empty cup of beer down.  
“I’ve got plenty of confidence,"

Even so, he follows the boy round to the gap side of your house. A few are backed against the gate, passing a joint around and interspersing it with sips of beer.  
“You got _weed_?” Stuart asks, stepping forward eagerly. One of his mate slaps him on the back.  
“Told you I would,”

Stuart doesn’t remember being told that weed would be brought, but he goes with it, grinning and waiting for the joint to come round. He takes it happily, taking along drag and letting it fill his lungs.

“Jesus, don’t hold back, mate,” someone yells.  
“He’s got good lung capacity,” someone else says in response, “that’s why I’ve always tried to get him to stop smoking. He could be a swimmer or something, innit,”

He passes the joint along as he holds it, holds it, holds it, until his eyes are watering, and then exhales, grinning. A bottle of vodka is immediately pushed into his hands.  
“The faster, the better,” someone mutters in his ear, and he tips the vile liquid right down his throat. He coughs and wipes his lips as he passes it along. The small space is already thick with smoke, and Stuart wonders how many joints they’ve already smoked. He takes two more deep drags, waiting for the drug to hit him, and then settles himself into taking smaller puffs as his mind begins to detach. He intersperses it with sips of vodka, and he leans against the hall, grinning lazily. 

“Stu, you got with (Y/n) yet?” someone asks. Stuart shakes his head and runs his hand through his hair, leaning forward to peer into the garden.  
“Nah,” he says, “tonight. I’m staying round. Tonight I will,”

The boys whoop and cheer, and the joint, somehow fresh and replenished, is pushed into his hands.  
“Celebratory puff,” someone says, and Stuart empties his lungs completely and fills them with toxic smoke, grinning, letting it flow over his lips as he exhales. 

That’s the exact moment you realise that he’s missing. 

You’re standing with a group of your friends, sipping champagne and clinking glasses every so often and reminiscing. The girl to your left, one who you recall have a massive crush on Stuart, is talking about how he asked her to the Fifth year prom. 

You nibble your lip as she talks, smiling and laughing at all the right points, but lost in your own thoughts. You’ve heard the story hundreds of times, but it never fails to send a bolt of jealousy through your chest.

Stuart had asked you to the Fifth year prom. Whether it had been platonic or romantic, you hadn’t known, but you’d automatically assumed he meant it platonically. Everything the two of you had ever done was platonic. Every sleepover, every trip to London, even the times you held hands or made out during games of Spin the Bottle, it had always been platonic. 

Had you wanted it to be platonic? No. Did that change the fact that it was platonic? Not for him.

When he’d asked you, you laughed and shaken your head, and said “we’ve got to take _dates_ , not mates”. He had looked disappointed, and you just chalked it down to the fact that he really wanted to go with you, as an easy option. Almost every girl in the class had, at one point, liked him, and showing loyalty to one would have put him in an awkward situation.

It was simpler with you. You were mates. You always had been. It was always (Y/n) and Stuart. Always together. No one would have batted an eyelid if you two had rocked up together.

But what if that disappointment hadn’t stemmed from his indecisiveness? What if he genuinely had wanted to go with you, as a date? What if that had been him asking you out, _for real_?

The thought of the missed opportunities makes you want to bury your face in your hands, but instead you straighten your spine and roll back your shoulders.

“Speaking of, has anyone seen Stuart?” you ask almost immediately after the girl has finished her story. The girls all shake their heads, murmuring. You down your champagne and set the glass down.  
“I’m gonna go look for him. I wanna play Twister, and he’s always an asset to the team,”

The girls find this a perfectly good excuse, and quickly fill in the gap you had left in the circle. You strike out across the garden, looking for the familiar blue head.

“Stuart?” you call, looking around for him. 

The small alley down the side of your house is sheltered, and Stuart doesn’t hear you call the first time. He takes another long drag on what is probably the third or fourth joint. He feels pleasantly high now, but the vodka is making him feel dizzy.

“Stuart?” he hears your voice, distantly, as though you’re underwater, call, and then footsteps.

He tears the joint from his lips as you come around the corner, shoving it into the hands of the boy beside him. 

But he knows you’ve already seen the damage that’s been done. The boys around him leer and jeer as your eyes fill with tears.

“Really, Stu?” you ask, “this is my last party, and this is how you act?”

He stares at you, feeling dull remorse somewhere in the very back of his head. It feels detached, like maybe if he could reach out and grab it, he could put it back into his mind where it belongs. 

“I-“

You turn away.  
“Don’t even. I should have known this would happen. Just go home, Stuart,"  
He can see that you’re really crying right now, thick, fat tears rolling down your cheeks as you turn your gaze back to him. Loud choruses of ‘ooooh’ pass between the boys, and he’s jostled a little as someone bumps against his arm, laughing.

A wave of nausea washes through him, and whether it’s the guilt, the weed, or the alcohol, he doesn’t know. 

He just turns away and throws up violently onto the patio.


	5. Chapter 5

Stuart stares up at his calendar, counting the days off on his fingers and under his breath. He finishes once, then counts again. Then again. 

53 days since the last time he had talked to you. 53 days since he had even seen you in person. 53 days that could have been better spent celebrating your friendship instead of obstinately ignoring each other.

He hadn’t meant to ignore you. He had been hungover in bed the day after the party, and then sick in bed the next day with a migraine. It was until he’d finally dragged himself up in the evening, 3 days after the party, that he saw the messages you had left him.

**Received July 3rd, 09:34**   
_Stu?_   
**Received July 3rd, 10:03**   
_You there?_   
**Received July 3rd, 10:16**   
_You’re probably hungover as shit_   
**Received July 3rd, 10:29**   
_I’m sorry about how I reacted_   
**Received July 3rd, 10:30**   
_I was just really sad, because it was my last night with everyone_   
**Received July 3rd, 10:30**   
_I was kind of hoping I could enjoy it with you_   
**Received July 4th, 12:35**   
_Stu???_   
**Received July 4th, 13:48**   
_It’s been 2 days, come on talk to me_   
**Received July 5th, 14:47**   
_STUART_   
**Received July 5th, 14:59**   
_You have the fucking nerve to ignore me after what YOU did?!_   
**Received July 5th, 15:06**   
_Fucking hell_   
**Received July 5th, 15:15**   
_Fine_   
**Received July 5th, 15:16**   
_I fucking get it_   
**Received July 5th, 15:36**   
_Fuck off then_

He had wanted to call you, or even text you, but the messages seemed to communicate everything; don’t get in contact. 

So now, it had been 53 days since he had last had contact with you. He sighs, feeling really quite miserable. Your last summer together, and he’s just allowed it to slip away. You’d planned to do so many things together. You were gonna dye your hair, and build a slip ’n’ slide, and put balloons on the trampoline, and fill the paddling pool with whipped cream. 

And only 3 days until you’re leaving to uni forever, to mix with smart, sophisticated, fancy blokes with posh accents and summer houses in France, all of whom will no doubt be trying to get with you because you’re fucking beautiful.

Stuart balls his hands into fists and presses them against his stomach, not liking the sharp stabs of jealousy that lance through his gut. 

He stares up at his calendar a little longer, and then flops backwards, letting his torso hang off the bed. His whole room flips upside down, and he crosses his arms over his stomach, pouting. He can feel the blood rushing to his head, and he’ll probably pay for this with a headache but damn it if he isn’t feeling miserable. Maybe he deserves the headache. 

It isn’t until he suddenly slips off the bed, head craving on the floor, that he realises he must have dozed off. He grunts as he rubs his head, struggling to sit up as his legs remain on the bed while his torso is flat out on the floor. 

Quarter to nine. It’s only just starting to get dark outside, and he hears a knock on the door, and then footsteps crossing over to it. 

As he struggles to sit up, rubbing the back of his head, he hears the door open, and then his mum exclaiming. 

“(Y/n), what-“ 

Stuart sits bolt upright, ignoring the flashes of pain that lance through his dangerously underused abs in protest. 

It can’t be you. It _can’t_ be. 

He rushes to his door and throws it open, listening hard.

“Come in, come in, you’re soaked to the bone,” he hears his mum say, and then footsteps stepping into the house, and the door shutting, “gosh, it’s _freezing_ out, and pouring with rain. What on earth are you doing here?”

“I actually came to see Stuart. I hope I’m not interrupting anything,”

It _is_ you.

Stuart just about feels his stomach fall out of his stomach. _Jesus Christ_ he hadn’t felt nerves like this since Katie had stuck her hand down his trousers at the Fifth year prom. 

“No, no, of course not, it’s always a pleasure to see you, even at this crazy hour! Let me get you a towel, and then I’ll-actually no, I’ll get him to do it,” 

Stuart hears his mum walking to the bottom of the stairs.

“Stu!” she calls up, “(Y/n)’s trekked here in the pouring rain to see you, grab a towel and a sweatshirt of yours for her!”

Standing frozen in the doorway, it takes a few seconds for him to compute the voices downstairs, and even longer to compute that one of the voices is _yours_.

“Stuart!” Rachel calls up again, “what’s taking so long?”

He snaps into action, grabbing a towel from the bathroom and a sweatshirt from the clean laundry bag. it’s creased but at least it’s clean. As an after thought, he grabs a clean pair of tracksuit trousers, even though they’ll be way too big on you. 

He’s not ready to see you standing, wet as a drowned rat, in his hallway, nor is he prepared for the small, shy smile you give him before you turn your head away slightly, letting your wet hair cover your face. 

He passes the towel to you wordlessly, and you take it without saying anything, rubbing at your hair and face.

“Change into some warm clothes,” Rachel says, and Stuart holds them out to you, “and Stuart, you take care of her,”

“Are you going somewhere?” you and Stuart ask, almost in unison. You flash him a look, and then a small grin, which he returns. 

“David and I are going out to dinner with friends,” Rachel tells you, taking the towel from you and rubbing at your soaked hair, “I don’t know what compelled you to come here in the dead of night,” she says, and then pushes your hair out of your face, and looks between you and Stuart, “but I’m glad the two of you are talking again,”

You smile at her, letting the towel drop around your shoulders.  
“Thanks for letting me in. I should probably call my parents and tell them where I am,”

“See that you do,” David tells you, patting your shoulder as he passes, “phone is where it always is,”

Stuart stares meaningfully at his mum as she turns to say goodbye, and she gives him a look. He knows that look. That’s the look that says ‘I know exactly how much alcohol is in the kitchen cabinet’. 

With that, the front door slams shut. 

Stuart isn’t even given a minute to reflect on how awkward and sour the situation could possibly turn, because you’ve already thrown yourself at him with a loud sob, abandoning the towel on the floor and wrapping your arms around his neck as best you can, pulling him down and burying your head into his shoulder.

His arms go around you automatically, pulling you close, your body curving inwards to press against his as he leans down. Chest to chest, stomach to stomach, head to head, he can’t help the pangs of longing that go fizzing through his veins. 

“I couldn’t bear it,” you sob against his shoulder, “I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving without saying goodbye,”

Fuck, now he’s starting to tear up.

He tightens the hug, and he can feel you shaking slightly, whether from grief or cold, he isn’t sure. As much as he wants to hold you, comfort you, let you cry onto his shoulder, his mum’s voice echoes through his head.

He pulls away slowly, allowing himself to brush wet locks of hair back from your face.  
“You’re soaked through,” he says, picking the towel up and placing it over your head again, “you’re gonna get cold and like, die,”

Through your tears, you crack the barest hint of a smile, then sniff and wipe your eyes, sobbing again.  
“I thought you hated me,” you tell him tearily, “I thought that you’d think I really meant it when I told you to fuck off,"  
“Course not,” he says, although he means the complete opposite. You sniff again, rubbing the towel over your head.  
“So you don’t hate me?”

Stuart looks down at you, red eyed and soaked through, having obviously sprinted from your house to his judging by how hard you’re panting and how red your cheeks are. All for _him_.

“I could never,” he says, earnestly and truthfully. You smile at him, looking as though a massive weight had just been lifted off your shoulders.

“Thank you,”


	6. Chapter 6

You flop down opposite Stuart, your hair damp from a piping hot shower, dressed in a pair of his tracksuit trousers (rolled up to fit) and a sweatshirt of his (with the sleeves also rolled up). You lean forward, resting your elbows on you knees and you chin on your fist, and Stuart mimics you. An unopened bottle of Prosecco sits between you.

“Ok so,” you say, “tell me everything you’ve done this summer, every time something surprises the other, they have to take a drink,”

Stuart nods, then frowns.  
“You what?”  
“So, if I tell you ‘I hooked up with Alan Parker behind the leisure centre’, and that surprises you, you have to take a drink,”  
“So the aim is to surprise the other?”  
“Yes,”

Stuart thinks for a moment.  
“I trip to back flip my bike off the roof of the shed,”  
You smirk a little.  
“That’s normal in terms of your painful escapades,”  
“Your turn,”  
You take a deep breath.  
“I hooked up with Alan Parker behind the leisure centre,”

That doesn’t so much surprise Stuart as much as hurt him. Even so, he grabs the bottle and prises the cork out, taking a swig. You grin triumphantly. 

“Your turn,”  
“Uh…I got food poisoning from eating 2 week old KFC,”  
You roll your eyes, and take a sip.  
“Ok. I snorted cocaine at a house party in Lincolnshire,” 

Stuart takes an extra long drink for that one.

“I jerked off 17 times in one day,”  
You laugh and make a disgusted face, then laugh a little more, even harder.  
“That doesn’t surprise me _at all_!” you say, still giggling.

The game progresses, and the bottle gets steadily emptier. Pretty soon, you tip the bottle back and down the last few drops of Prosecco.

“Damn,” you mutter, “we finished it,”  
“Didya know that Prosecco is a silent killer?” Stuart asks you, standing up to dump the empty bottle and get a new one.  
“Why’s that?”  
“Cos it tastes nice, but it’s alcoholic. S’like fruit cider, innit? You keep drinking them cos they taste nice, and you just end up getting wasted,”

You laugh and shoo him out of the room.  
“Go get another bottle,”

As soon as he’s done making a show of walking out the room as slowly as possible, you steel yourself up a little more. You’d been taking bigger and bigger swigs all through the game, and you can already feel your inhibitions beginning to melt away. You can hear the stairs creaking as Stuart comes back, and you listen to them, able to tell exactly which one he’s one by it’s unique squeak. 

He comes back in, brandishing two more bottles of Prosecco. You beam at him, taking them both and setting them down, shoving your sleeves further up your arms. You pop open the one nearest to you, and hold it to your lips.  
“Surprise me,”


	7. Chapter 7

You swing the bottle, the fourth of the night, back and forth, holding it by the neck, and take a swig.   
“Stu?”  
“Mmm?”  
“D’you ‘member when we got married? In the playground, in Year 4?”  
“Sorta,”  
You giggle, and hold the bottle out to him. He takes it, and takes a sip.  
“You remember it?”  
“Mhmm,” 

You pause, looking down at your hands, folded in your lap, and then shift over, until you’re leaning against him, head on his shoulder. His arm automatically goes around your shoulders, more out of reflex than desire.  
“You had brown hair back then,” you murmur, cheek pressed against his collar bone, “and you had a tear in the elbow of your sweatshirt that we tried to glue back together,”  
Stuart rests his head against the wall, taking the bottle and taking another swig of Prosecco.   
“Yeah,”

Neither of you say anything for a few minutes, just sit side by side, in silence, your cheek presses against his collar, your damp hair slowly seeping into the fabric of his shirt, his arm wrapped tightly around your shoulders.

You trail your hand over his waist gently, up his chest, tracing the letters of the logo emblazoned across the front of the t-shirt.

“I wish we could get married for real,”  
“Really?”  
“Mhmm. You know that saying for weddings? 'Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue’?”  
“Am I the blue?”  
You laugh and sip the prosecco.  
“You’re the blue,”

You fall into a comfortable silence, and he feels your head get slightly heavier on his shoulder. Have you fallen asleep? He should probably grab the blow up mattress and lay it down for you. The two of you had tried sleeping in the same bed about 5 years ago, so you could try out the glow sticks you had brought with you under the duvet, but his mum had rushed in and yanked you out, even making you sleep in the spare room. 

He’d been sat down and given a long, long, long talk about the birds and the bees after that, which he had not needed.

Stuart is barely concentrating on his surroundings, and he’s suddenly yanked back from his thoughts when your lips press to his neck. He’s utterly stunned, sitting stock still and in silence as your kisses trail up his neck, across his jaw, and then over his cheek. You definitely aren’t asleep. He turns his head ever so slightly towards you, and the kiss moves from his cheek to his lips. Your kiss is warm and soft and insistent and entirely impossible to ignore. He’s stunned again for the briefest of moments, but he can’t help but kiss back, letting you shift into his lap, straddling him, your arms coming up to link around his shoulders and his sliding up your thighs. You’re so warm and close and _just_ how he’d imagined you. Is he imagining this? Your hand trails up his thigh and _holy shit_ he is definitely not imagining this. 

It isn’t until you’re practically gasping against his lips that you pull away, resting your forehead against his and laughing. He finds himself laughing too, but there’s a bitter note to it. You’re obviously drunk. You’re obviously just joking around.

“Are you drunk?” he asks, holding your shoulders, pushing you back a little. You smile and laugh softly, looking somewhat wistful or even sad.  
“I had to get my confidence from somewhere,” you tell him, rocking your hips forward against him, “I couldn’t leave without…”

You don’t get to pick up your sentence, because Stuart’s lips are on yours again, one hand on the small of your back, pressing your stomach against his, the other linking with yours, squeezing your hand tightly. Your hand is hovering on his chest, and sparks shoot through his stomach as he shifts against you, tongue in your mouth, and you let out an honest-to-god _moan_ and grip the fabric of his shirt a little. 

Holy shit does he want you in his bed. Actually, fuck the bed, he wants you on the fucking _floor_. 

He sits up a little, so ready to flip you backwards and pin you against the floor, when he feels your shoulders shake. He pulls away, and is horrified to see your eyes closed and cheeks wet with tears. You sniff loudly, turning your head away and scrubbing at your cheeks.  
“I’m sorry,” you whisper, “I’m sorry,”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, his heart thudding. You smile ever so slightly.  
“It’s not you,” you tell him, and gently press your hand against his stomach, leaning in, “you’re great. Amazing. Fantastic,”

You let out another small sob, and press your other hand over your mouth.  
“I’m sorry,” you say again, “I’m just gonna miss you so much,”

Oh. He’d been so caught up he’d almost forgotten why you’d shown up out of the blue, why you’d been so teary before, why you were even in his room.

“Hey,” he says, pulling himself up a little, “hey, I’ll miss you too, but we’ll still talk,”

You sniff hard, wiping your eyes with the sleeve of your borrowed sweatshirt.  
“But I won’t get to see you,”

You toy with the hem of his shirt, and his eyes flicker down to your fingers, just millimetres from his skin, just inches from…

“I’ll come visit you,” he whispers, unable to tear his eyes away from your hand.

His eyes flicker back up to yours, only to find that you’re looking down at your hand too. You look up slowly, your hair falling over your eyes. 

Are you thinking the same things as him? 

You lean in again, pressing your lips to his, pressing your body against his, hands sliding just beneath the hem of his t-shirt, resting on his stomach. He wonders if you can feel his thudding heart beat through his chest. 

His hands on your hips, and then inching under your sweatshirt, constantly gauging your reaction, continuing up, exposing your hips, then your waist, your stomach, until the sweatshirt in bunched under your arms and you’re taking it off, letting his hands wander freely over your skin. He lets his thumbs stroke the curve of your hips, trailing up your waist and around your back, up your spine, feeling you arch against him, making him moan as your hips rock against his crotch. His fingers ghost over your shoulder blades, and then down, to the clip of your bra. 

He pulls away from the kiss, because holy shit is this a sight he desperately wants to see. He doesn’t even try to keep his eyes on your face as the hooks come undone, and he peels the garment from you, and your arms fall away, letting your hands move under his shirt, pulling it up and over his head. 

He sighs and almost moans as you press your bare chest to his, parted lips pressing against his collar bone, trailing along his neck to his jaw, fingers toying with the hair at the nape of his neck. He lets your mouth engulf his once again, moaning against your lips as your wrap your arms around his neck once again.

You straighten up a little, pulling back from the kiss before it’s barely even started. Stuart follows your lips, trying to kiss you again. You pant softly, running your hands over his stomach.

“D-do you have condoms?”

Nerves go lacing through Stuart’s arms and legs, and he gulps, nodding wordlessly.  
“On my bedside table,”

Before he can even compute what’s happening, you stand up, leaving his lap cold, taking his hands in yours and pulling him up. Your hands find his face and you pull him down, kissing him, letting him back you up to the bed. 

You can’t believe this is happening. Stuart Pot, the class heartthrob, the pretty boy, the school talent, _your best friend_ is kissing you, is letting his hands roam over your hips and breasts and arse, is laying you down on his bed and moaning as he bucks his lips against your thigh. He’s unbuckling his belt and helping you wriggle out of your borrowed tracksuit trousers and looking at you as though you’re the most beautiful thing in the world, not tearing his eyes from you for a single second.

You run your hands through his hair, biting your lip as he turns his attention from you for the shortest of moments to grab a condom.

“Stuart,” you whisper, and he looks down at you, balanced on his elbows, pressing his body as close to yours as possible. You can feel him against every inch of your body, and you stroke your hands through his hair again.

“What?”

You smile, sitting up ever so slightly to press your lips to his.  
“Nothing, I just like your name,” you murmur against his lips, letting him swallow them up as he kisses you with more ferocity, hands fumbling and slipping over the foil, discarding it somewhere on the floor. 

He pants softly, forehead buried in the curve of your neck. Your stomach is filled with butterflies, as is his. You turn your head to the side, whispering in his ear,

“Have you…have you had sex before?”

He nods, raising his head to look down at you, to gauge your reaction, his shoulders tensing.  
“Yeah,”

He can just about see the curve of your smile in the darkness, and the tension in his shoulders relaxes.  
“With who?”

“You remember that French exchange girl who came for two weeks in Year 12?”

To his surprise, you snort with laughter. He begins to laugh too, and you draw him closer, pressing your lips to his shoulder and then giggling again.

“Wow,” you whisper, and then pull away, laying back. Stuart can’t help but let his eyes trail downwards, over the curve of your neck to your shoulder, the edge of your collar bones, the soft shadows between your breasts and the gentle rise and fall of your chest. He lets his hand move gently, as though you’ll break, up your arms, over your collar, down your chest, one moving to tangle in your hair, the other holding your waist.

“It wasn’t anything like this,” he whispers. You smile, a different kind of smile this time, raising your hand to cup his cheek. 

Holy shit, this is different. _Holy shit_.

Stuart gulps, suddenly very afraid to fuck this up.

“It…it might hurt,”

“I trust you,” you whisper, smiling, and to him you’ve never looked more beautiful,

“I trust you.”


	8. Chapter 8

When Stuart wakes up, the two of you are sprawled across his bed in uncomfortable positions. He rolls onto his back, his arm numb and tingling. 

His head throbs dully, and he groans as he moves his stiff neck. Light is only just starting to creep in underneath his closed curtains, and he glances at the alarm clock on his bedside table. The neon green numbers read 05:18. 

He groans quietly, rubbing his temples. There’s a pack of Ibuprofen on the bedside table, but this doesn’t feel like a headache. Just a hangover.

You shift in your sleep, murmuring, shifting further onto your side. You’re still fast asleep, your hair messy from sleeping on it while it was wet. You shift closer to him, pressing your forehead against his arm. 

Your legs are still tangled with his, your arm wound around his waist, preventing him from moving too far. Your forehead is pressed against his chest now. Your lips are slightly parted, and he can see the already fading marks of bites and hickeys across your neck. 

He strokes a lock of hair away from your face and lays his head back on the pillow. He stares at the wall, and his gaze shifts to the calendar above his bed. 

Just 3 days until you leave. 3 days that he has left with you, to hold you and kiss you and have sex with you. 

He swallows thickly, his throat tight, his eyes stinging. He will not cry, not while you’re in his arms, your head warming his chest and your arms around him, keeping him close and ensuring he can’t move away.

You murmur something nonsensical in your sleep, and he looks down at you. You inhale a little deeper, tilting your head so you’re level with his clavicle. Your eyes flicker restlessly beneath your eyelids, and you shift a tiny bit every so often, the corner of your mouth twitching.

He watches for a few seconds, and then turns onto his side, pulling you a little closer, cradling you, holding you. He appreciates what he can, and bows his head to press a gentle kiss against your cheek. 

He has today. He has tomorrow. He has you.


End file.
